Promotion

Near Dark remake killed by Twilight?

It's weird, in Hollywood if a film is successful all the studios leap on the bandwagon, if they haven't done already, and make films on the same subjects. We've seen it time and time again, and it keeps happening.

Now though the opposite is happening, because Twilight is a hit, the Near Dark remake looks like it might be canned, and what's more surprising is that it's coming from the studio king of remakes.

“Near Dark is probably not going to happen...I think that Twilight was the same type of thing we were going for although Near Dark was a much darker, sexier, rated R version of that. But I’m concerned that, conceptually, that Near Dark and Twilight are too similar in terms of a vampire movie. For now, that movie is on hold.”

Well that is a surprise, usually the success of a film with a similar theme would mean the other studio would be straight onto their version just to piggyback on the success of the bigger film, even if it just meant a fraction of the originals takings.

So this is a refreshing answer, and especially from a studio who love to remake cult films. Do you think they're starting to learn their lesson?

It seems that they think the two films are two similar to be released so closely together, something I actually disagree with. Okay, Near Dark is about a man who chats to a woman in the bar one night and she attacks him. He starts to feel a little odd and it's not long before he realises something isn't right.

The woman returns to the family she's travelling with and they decide they have to head off and pick the guy up, the reason? It turns out they are vampires and she has turned him into one. However when he reluctantly joins their group and the woman thinks she has her plaything, he falls for another vampire in the family.

Now that doesn't sound hugely like Twilight, but it does if you condense it down to how Fuller puts it:

“The concept of ‘one person’s a vampire, the other person isn’t and they’re in love,’ with the success of that film, we would not measure up...It’s not the right time to make that.”

Yeah, reduce it to that and you have the film, but Near Dark isn't like Twilight, it's a lot more adult and it is most definitely not just about the romantic love interest of a human and a vampire, there's a hell of a lot more to it than that.

Is this more an easy scape goat? Is it better that they don't remake the film, after all it is a superb cult film. That said, these films could happily exist together, apart from the love connection and vampires they are miles apart, and at least Near Dark has tons more meat and depth to it.